


Dance of Avoidance

by Ghelik



Series: Life after the Mountain [8]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Mount Weather, Post-Season/Series 02, Roan might or might not be a little shit, Running Away, bellamy is done with this whole shit, dealing with shit, mentions of pasts relationships, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7263535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke's back in Arkadia.<br/>Bellamy's not avoiding her. Why should he? It's not like he's missed her or anything. He's just a very busy man.<br/>Clarke's totally avoiding him. There's no point in denying it. It's not like she's going to stay anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance of Avoidance

BELLAMY  
She comes back out of the blue: no warning, no nothing. Just like that, one day he’s going on patrol, and she appears on a fucking two-headed horse. She has adopted a grounder – and what’s with everyone adopting grounders, anyway? First Octavia with Lincoln, then Miller with his trikru hunting-buddies, Murphy and now Clarke, too. It’s not that he’s doesn’t trust them – the grounders -, or that he’s jealous – he’s definitively not, he doesn’t even remember Echo’s name, so shut up. It’s just... Is this a new trend? Is everybody going to bring a grounder back to camp?

  
The new grounder’s name is Roan, he’s cocky and arrogant, and Bellamy hates him on principle. It’s easier just to hate him than contemplating that he might be very much jealous – which he’s not.

  
Roan’s Azgeda, Bellamy knows, because he’s paid attention to Lincolns “grounder studies” – which he should call politics, but where’s the fun in that? 

 He also knows this Roan character is not just some low-life Azgeda warrior like Echo was. Lincoln showed him some of the brands for the clans' higher nobility when he started attending meetings with Kane and the rest of the skaikru Council, and he kept forgetting which etiquette went with which character.

 

 Bellamy hasn’t gotten around to ask Lincoln which ones are those on this guy’s brow, but he’s definitively some knight or duke or something like that.

  
Which is nice. The Princess is used to rub elbows with the higher ups. He’s not jealous. He’s not. And he doesn’t miss Clarke anymore – dealt with that little problem ages ago.

  
It’s not that he’s avoiding her, there’s just no reason to go out of his way to meet her or to see her, or be in the same section as her.

  
He’s not avoiding Clarke because that would be childish and stupid – he’s so over her betrayal, he doesn’t even remember why he was sad, to begin with. 

 

There’s definitively no avoiding going on. 

 

Bellamy just happens to be a busy man– he’s a council member, guard, and part two hunting-teams. He also has to take care of Cicero. That horse is too big to be cooped up in his box all day. So he has to ride him. Like always.

  
He’s not avoiding Clarke.  


He’s just remembered he needs to check on some of the recruits when she steps out of the room with that purposeful stride of hers that makes him smile.

  
Clarke doesn’t come to see him either. It’s probably her that’s hiding. She probably just wants to be left alone; to leave again as soon as her grounder has healed. Except that he’s better and she’s still here, so maybe… 

 

Bellamy squashes that small flicker of definitively not-hope because what his princess does or doesn’t do isn’t any of his business anymore.

 

 

CLARKE

  
She is actively avoiding Bellamy, and she knows it. She also knows he doesn’t want to talk to her, or see her or even acknowledge she’s back. That’s why she’s avoiding him. Because she has no right to come back into his life and expect everything to be like it was. 

 

She carefully traces her steps so that she’s nowhere near him.

  
She visits Raven and Monty and Miller, trying to mend their friendship because they’re all important to her. Clarke has even a Very Strained Conversation with Jasper and knows she’ll never be able to look him in the eye again because she would pull that lever again if it meant he’s safe,  and she’s sorry, but...

  
She sits at dinner with Lincoln, Octavia – it takes a bit, but she forgives her too, and Clarke doesn’t deserve that either - and the rest of the gang – but only when she knows that Bellamy will be out on patrol.

 

On her third day back, she meets Gina.

  
When she enters Raven’s workshop, there’s this new girl, just leaning against the counter with a smile on her face while Raven and Emori – Murphy’s girlfriend, and how random was that? – are welding two large metallic components.

  
"You hiding from Abby again?" Raven asks without even looking up.

  
Clarke gives her an apologetic smile, her eyes darting between the two girls and the new one. She met Emori the first time she entered the workshop. The grounder girl is friendly and unobtrusive. Clarke doesn’t know this new girl leaning so comfortably against the table, twisting her hair between her fingers and even though Clarke's never been shy, she finds herself not knowing how to behave around all these strangers anymore."

  
"I can come back later if you’re busy."

  
"Na, it's ok. Clarke, meet Gina."

  
Clarke gives her a tight nod. Gina tries for a friendly smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

  
She’s soft. That’s the first thing Clarke notices when she looks at Gina. She’s soft, light and hostile towards her in a very composed and cold way. 

 

If Raven notices it, she doesn’t comment, since Emori never says much, she doesn’t say anything either. 

 

Gina gives her opinion whenever she feels like it. That’s probably why Raven likes her. Clarke does not think about what Bellamy likes about Gina. She tries to be friendly, make light conversation while Gina judges her every move.

 

It’s not until the eighth day that Gina asks the question. 

 

"What are you doing here, Clarke?" Gina asks without even looking at her.

 

They’re leaving Raven’s workshop: Gina to go meet with Bellamy and her to go eat with her mother and Kane. She thinks she should go check on Roan, who’s recovered enough to be a pain in the ass – honestly, she’s had children that were better patients than he is.

  
"What do you mean?" she counters just to win time to try and compose herself.

  
Gina scoffs.  
"Why have you come back? What do you want?"

  
"I-I… Don’t want anything…"

  
Gina is angry, looking at her like she’s a monster. It's a look Clarke has gotten often. She's still not used to it.  


"What right do you have to come back and disturb the lives of everyone." Clarke doesn’t know how to answer, and Gina keeps going "What do you think that only because the grounders believe that you're some sort of deity, you can barge in here and upset everyone? That they’ll bow to you and everything will be like it was?"

  
Clarke wants to answer that, of course not; she doesn’t want them to follow her. She doesn’t even want to remember that Wanheda exists somewhere within her, she didn’t mean to upset anyone. She wants to leave again because she cannot bear it. 

 

The words seem lodged on her lips, burning on the tip of her tongue.

  
"I only came back because Roan needed help," is the only thing she manages to say.

  
Gina cocks her head, eyebrows furrowed.  
 

"You’re not staying?"

  
Clarke presses her lips together. "We’ll leave as soon as he’s good enough to ride."

  
Gina doesn’t smile. She looks up from her face and frowns, then she sees something behind Clarke.  


"Bell?"

  
Clarke doesn’t want to look over her shoulder.

  
She does anyway. 

 

Bellamy’s there, pale and wide-eyed, lips pressed into a thin line. She doesn’t even try to come up with an excuse before running away like the coward she is.

 

 

BELLAMY  


It sucks to be right sometimes. It sucked when he was right about Murphy – every single time he was right about him – and it sucks to be right about Clarke. 

 

But that is the truth: Clarke doesn’t want to be here. Maybe she’s found whatever she was looking for and has to go back. Maybe she doesn’t give a damn about them anymore. 

 

Bellamy saddles Cicero and is galloping out of Arkadia before the gates are even fully open, the wind stinging his face and pulling at his clothes. He loosens the reigns letting Cicero fly wherever he wants to go.

  
He comes back three hours later, walking next to Cicero a stag slung across the mighty horse’s back. See? No running away, not even affected by Clarke, he just wanted to go hunting.

  
Bellamy’s calm now can see everything with some sort of perspective. He enters his little hut after leaving the stag at the newly-build smoke house. Gina smiles up to him.

  
"I saved you some dinner."

  
He kisses her, crushing her against his body.

 

 

CLARKE

  
Clarke is totally running away. There’s no point in denying it, and she doesn’t. She’s been having nightmares every night for two weeks now– the sort she hasn’t had since before Sonja - and she can’t take it anymore. 

 

She wants to sleep, to be left alone and for people to stop tiptoeing around her like she’s a bomb about to go off.

  
Clarke’s slipped out of Arkadia without much of a problem – these people really should check their security - and she’s running like hell.

  
Roan will find her, and if he doesn’t, he’ll take care of Thunderclap. She’ll miss the horse, but not enough to go back. She’ll miss Roan, too, but she’s used to losing people by now.

  
It’s her fault anyway. She should have left when Roan started wandering around camp with his shit-eating grin. He’s been watching Raven and faking pain so that Abby won’t allow him on a horse – as if Abby could stop him if he wanted to go. But, for some obscure reason, he doesn’t.

  
"What's the rush?"Roan had asked her. 

 

She didn’t know how to answer.

  
They stayed. Roan started talking to Raven, was kind to Emori and charmed his way into most of the huts of Droptwo. The people in Arkadia proper were less charmed but liked him well enough – again, they should take a leaf out of grounder-book and be a little bit more wary of strangers.

  
Abby started giving Clarke little chores, making small comments, like how she shouldn’t dye her hair anymore. Like why doesn’t she stop carrying her backpack everywhere?

  
"It’s not like it’s going to disappear."

  
Like she doesn’t need her sword constantly strapped to her back.  


"It makes the people in the med-bay uncomfortable."

  
Always small, meaningless things, everything’s perfectly reasonable. Not wanting to fight with Abby now that she had forgiven her for all the sins she’s committed. Clarke gave in every time.

  
Until one day Clarke looks into the mirror and doesn't recognize the girl looking back. The girl that looks so much like her in the Ark before the ground and the delinquents that are her family. 

 

That face, looking up at her feels like a lie. She’s not this white creature in the navy blue shirt and jeans. She misses her fur and her leather, the comfortable weight of her sword and knives.

 

Abby wants her to be the child she locked up. But she isn’t. Not anymore. That child was pure, had a white heart, an idealistic mind. 

 

The ground made something else of her, and during her travels with Roan, Clarke learned to accept that she’s not that girl anymore. She learned to accept what she has done and what she would do again.

  
Clarke is choking inside of Arkadia. There’s not enough air for her to exist there, not with her mother’s expectations, and everyone’s eyes following her, and her friends tiptoeing around her and no one she can really confide in.

  
She has to flee, and she does. She dons her grounder garments that are snug and warm and hers - Clarke has traded and hunted for every scrap - she ties her sword to her back and her knives to her thighs, hauls her backpack. She even stuffs her beautiful fur coat because she had to kill a fucking panther for it –those things are difficult to kill, and Clarke has the claw marks on her back to prove it- and it’s useful, and winter is coming, and she’s just not leaving it behind.

  
The blonde isn’t sure where she’s running to until she arrives at the dropship and her legs just stop.

  
There’s no more ash blanketing the dirt, saplings litter the ground, and the dropship stands tall, gray, plants crawling all over its surface. She can nearly see the camp as it used to be: over there was her tent. That’s where Octavia liked to sit watching over the wall. That’s where she first tried making a rhythm on the drums, there’s where Bellamy’s tent was. That’s where Jackson first showed them how to make a spear. Where Wells had cut a chess board onto a tree-stump. 

 

This is where her people landed and decided that yes, they were grounders, too. This is their land. Land conquered by blood and sacrifices and how is it that they never told the grounders to float themselves? Yes, they killed three hundred warriors, but by grounder law, it wasn’t an offense. It was a war tactic. Those three hundred warriors needn’t be avenged by “blood must have blood,” they had killed enough of her people anyway. She should have been stronger against Lexa – and that name still twists her guts with disappointment – should have told her: “This land is not trikru’s anymore. It’s skaikru's because skaikru has conquered it. I want terms of surrender or else!"

  
It’s too late now.

 

 

BELLAMY  


He’s most definitely not stalling. Cicero just needs the exercise. Plus, he likes going back to the Dropship from time to time. It’s not like he’s wallowing in self-pity or anything. He honestly likes the Dropship – especially now that the last of the ash has been washed away. It’s like a friendly, bittersweet ghost.

 

 Good memories intertwined with the bad ones.  


He lets Cicero graze on the little saplings and steps into the cold darkness of the Dropship and promptly curses his luck. In English and Trigedasleng –Lincoln and Octavia should be so proud of him.

  
There she is, standing next to the model of camp he’d done before the battle against the grounder army a century ago. The model of the dropship is in her hands. He knows he should go, but can’t get himself to move. He’s rooted to the spot, and she turns to him and gasps and steps away so quickly, she nearly falls over. 

 

Clarke catches herself on the edge of the table.

  
Her hands are white-knuckled around the small Dropship model.

  
"Hi" he manages.  


She nods her head, lips pressed together. She cannot even look at him. Bellamy really should leave. But he can’t tear his eyes off her.

 

 

CLARKE  


She takes him in for the first time since she came back: he looks older, sadder, thinner, too. He should take better care of himself.

  
Clarke must have said the last part out loud because he snorts.

 

"You’re one to talk," he grumbles under his breath.

  
Clarke straightens, crossing her arms over her breasts and grabbing her sides, she can feel her ribs under her shirt. Which is most definitively beside the point.

 

"I’ll let you know, I take perfect care of myself."

  
"Whatever you say, princess," Bellamy snaps just like they used to.

 

And if the startled look on his face is anything to go by, it was just a reflex. Clarke doesn't mind.

  
He hasn’t called her that since Finn’s death – execution, and whose fault was that again? – and she shouldn’t blush the way she knows she does. But she likes how it sounds on his lips. 

 

The nickname reminds her of something that’s just theirs, from her delinquents. 

 

Something that can’t be dirtied by the ground or by her bloody hands.  


He doesn’t step closer and, even though she wants him to hold her, to embrace her and make her feel safe, she doesn’t move either.

 

 

BELLAMY  


"So… you weren’t even going to say goodbye this time."

  
His words are harsher than he intended but he’s suddenly so angry. Has he ever been so furious with anybody ever before? He claws at the anger, dragging it against his chest, letting it fall over him like a coat. He can deal with this if he’s angry.

  
The pit he’s fought so hard to stay out of yawns at his feet again, and Bellamy knows she has the power to push him over the edge. 

Anger will protect him.  


Let her go if she wants to. What does he care? What is she to him? Nothing but a best friend that abandoned him, a leader who shifted the weight of the world onto his shoulders. She’s nothing to him. He should throw her a fucking party for all that he cares.

  
Clarke can’t even look at him, her eyes wandering around the Dropship like he’s an inconvenience.

  
There are tears on her cheeks. She turns her yellow hair an effective screen between them. She steps towards the door.

  
Bellamy wants to grab her, to physically force her to stay and answer why? Why isn’t he ever enough?  


She stops at the door, and the sun is illuminating her face like it did that first time on the ground. Her skin is not as pale or as immaculate anymore: littered with scars. Her hair is darker too, braided instead of pulled back.

  
"I am sorry," she whispers as if that’s supposed to make it all better.

  
Her blue eyes fixed on the ground that was theirs, and this is why he hasn’t moved back in. He can pretend everything is ok in Arkadia. Here, her absence would just keep the wound open.

 

 

CLARKE

  
The words seem lodged in the back of her throat, but she manages to spit them out, slowly and painfully. It’s weakness, every word a weapon for him to use against her. But…

  
But he still is her best friend.  


"I am sorry. For leaving,"  she can’t breathe. "I-I am sorry. I-I knew I could because they had you."

  
She sits down on the ramp. The sun is warm on her skin. She can’t look at him, ashamed and tired and vulnerable.

  
For a long time, he doesn’t answer. Then he steps closer, sits down on the opposite side of the door, his back against the metal. Clarke can see his face, shut down and earnest.

  
"Is there something I could have said, that would have made you stay?"

  
She looks at the ground, at the little model in her hands. If she runs, she’s taking that with her, she decides. And when did it turn into an _if_? _When_ she runs. She means _when_.  


"I don’t know."

  
Bellamy nods slowly.  


The silence is choking her. It was better when Bellamy was angry. Why won’t he say anything? He should rage, he should scream and shout, throw accusations at her or… Something. Anything. This silence is terrible because she knows he’s blaming himself.

  
He always does and he shouldn’t.  


Once upon a time, Bellamy was her best friend, her confidant, her support. She knew she could tell him anything. She knows she still can, it’s only she really doesn’t want to burden him any further.

  
"I can’t stay," she confesses, and now it’s easier. "I-I’m… I destroy everything I touch."

 

 

BELLAMY  


"We’re alive because of you."

  
She smiles softly, swallows.  


"Four or five weeks east of here, there’s a little hut in the woods. Sonja lives there. She has a trading post. She has two goats and a small garden surrounded by lilies. Her parents died in the winter a few years back. Sonja learned to take care of herself, to spare as little pity as possible, she is fair and doesn't ask questions. 

 

One day this Wanderer enters Sonja's trading post. She’s wearing a thin jacket and dirt on her face and hair. One of her boots is broken and three toes are frozen through. This Wanderer is in the early stages of hypothermia. Sonja knows she has nothing of value, knows this girl is not meant to survive the winter; knows pity might cost her dearly because everything in this world has a price. Sonja has a kind heart and takes pity of this girl, takes her in."

  
Bellamy has an awful feeling about this story. 

He keeps his mouth shut and watches Clarke, staring at the tears on her cheeks.

  
"Sonja discovers a few days later that this girl has done some terrible stuff. She could get a lot of money if she sold her out to the Heda in Polis. Instead, Sonja heals her, teaches her to speak the language, to color her hair, to tend to the garden and the goats. They live together for a while. People come and go. The trading post is quiet most of the time because snow makes travelling difficult and dangerous.

 It’s easy to loose track of the days, and god Sonja's so beautiful!"

  
Clarke’s sobbing, the model has fallen into her lap and she’s rubbing away at her hands.  
Bellamy swallows the thick lump in his throat.

  
"What happens then?"

  
Clarke's scratching the scarred skin of her palms. Her eyes lost somewhere in the middle distance. Bellamy drags himself closer to her and takes one of her small hands in his to prevent her from clawing the skin off.

  
"Hunters come. They’ve heard that someone matching Wanheda’s description was living in the trading post. The wanderer is in the woods, collecting wood. She hears the screams. Her foot – the one that’s lost three toes – is nearly healed, but she still can’t run. When she gets there Sonja’s... Just… She…."

  
Bellamy presses Clarke against his chest, and she wails.

  
"She was so good and I killed her. It’s me. I killed her like I killed Finn. Like my dad and the people in TonDC a-and…"

  
The list goes on and on. Some deaths are on her. Some not so much, but she still blames herself.  
  


Bellamy wants to tell her it’s not true, wants to take some of the weight off her. But there’s a knot in his throat. He can hardly breathe, much less talk. So he presses her against his chest, resting his cheek against her hair and waits for her to stop crying, holding her as hard as he can to show her she’s not alone. 

They’re not alone.

 

 

CLARKE  
  


The sun is setting, the air is crisp and chilly - the doorway is drafty, but she’s comfortable lying against Bellamy’s chest. 

 

She’s drowsy after her crying fit, and the little nap she must have taken because she doesn’t remember moving from her side of the doorway to his. His breathing is deep and slow, one of his hands’ buried in her hair and the other resting lightly against her knee. 

 

Clarke feels empty and tired and lighter. Her eyes hurt from crying, her cheeks salty from the tears, but she hasn’t been this relaxed since… Well… for a very long time.

  
She looks up at him. He seems peaceful while sleeping. Younger too. His hand tightens a moment in her hair, his eyes darting around behind closed lids. Then he relaxes again, mumbling. She closes her eyes and lets herself drift for a while, ear pressed against his chest, just listening to his heartbeat and his breathing.

  
"Please, don’t leave me again."

  
His voice is very soft, but she can hear it rumbling in his chest. He doesn’t tighten his grip on her when she looks up. He isn’t even looking at her but at the treeline.

 

 It’s dark now, stars glint in the sky and there’s a gigantic horse grazing just a few feet away, his red eyes shining in the darkness.  
She bites her tongue. Her muscles coiling to run. She can’t. She can’t. She just can’t stay here. But Bellamy’s never asked for anything, and she owes him.

  
The black horse raises its head, looking into the trees and giving a high-pitched whine. Clarke and Bellamy rise as one, her hands jumping to her sword, his to his ax.

 

 

BELLAMY  
  


Bellamy’s dislike for this world has grown exponentially since the minute he stepped out of the dropship for the first time. 

 

The universe’s ability to fuck him over is rather remarkable, and it has come to a point where it just cannot be coincidental anymore.

  
Here he is one minute having a beautiful heart to heart with Clarke after a fucking year, then the next, a group of grounders are trying to turn his beautifully annoying horse into their supper or something. 

 

Cicero may be a pain in the ass but as it happens it’s _his_ pain in the ass and no one’s allowed to turn him into supper but him! Of course, this also happens to be the only time in his fucking life he’s not carrying a gun, just his ax and a pack of sewing needles. Because of course, it is.

  
So here he is, like a newbie, confronted with a group of five grounders who didn’t get the memo that they’re not at war anymore. Forced into hand-to-hand combat with them. 

 

Trying – and sort-of failing – not to be distracted by Clarke kicking ass. Damn his princess can use that sword!

 

He just so manages to evade a sword to the gut, but not the fist to the face and lands on his back, raising his ax more on reflex than because he saw the grounder coming. And then a wickedly sharp sword pokes through his attacker’s eye. He can hear shouts of “retreat” and angry horse whines.

 

 Bellamy pushes the corpse off him. A grounder is smiling down at him from her horse.

  
"Echo?"

  
The universe is a bitch, and he hates it.  
  


" _Well met, Belomi of Skaikru."_

 _  
_Echo turns, a terrifying smile on her face and bellows.  
" _Hunt the traitors down!"_

 _  
_" _Long live King Roan!_ " comes the answering shouts as a group of soldiers hunts their attackers into the tree line.

  
Echo dismounts.  
  


"That’s Roan’s horse," says Clarke.

  
"Yes. He found his way back to us with Roan's message. I’m sorry it took so long."

  
"Roan’s message?" Bellamy and Clarke exchange a look.

  
"Where’s the King?" asks Echo in lieu of an answer.

  
Bellamy has a very, very bad feeling about this.  
  


"Back in Arkadia," his voice is harsher than he intended. Echo smiles at him, her eyes still shining with the excitement of the hunt.

  
"I can’t wait to see skaikru settlement."

  
Clarke and Bellamy exchange another look.  
  


Why does it feel like the universe isn’t done fucking with his life yet?

**Author's Note:**

> This was unbetad 
> 
> As always, thanks so much for reading and commenting


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